Cast announced for new THUNDERBIRDS TV series

Iconic 1960s children's TV series Thunderbirds is returning for a new run. 26 episodes will air in 2015, with the series already in pre-production.

Gerry Anderson announced that the project was underway shortly before his death. Sadly, he passed away before it entered production. The new show will be called Thunderbirds Are Go! and is a co-production between ITV in the UK and Pukeko Pictures in New Zealand, with Weta Workshop (who have done the effects for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies, amongst others) handling design work and some of the effects.

Unlike the original show, which used puppets (and was a major influence on the movie Team America: World Police), the new series will use scale sets, some miniatures and CGI to depict the characters and some of the effects.

The announced voice cast so far consists of:

Kayvan Novak (Four Lions, Facejacker) as Brains.
Rosamund Pike (The World's End, Die Another Day) as Lady Penelope.
David Graham (the original Thunderbirds) as Parker.
Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Game of Thrones) as Gordon and John Tracy.
Rasmus Hardiker (Saxondale, Cockneys vs. Zombies) as Alan and Scott Tracy.
Sandra Dickinson (The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy) as Grandma Tracy.
Angel Coulby (Merlin) as Kayo (a new character).
Adjoa Andoh (Doctor Who, Casualty) as Colonel Casey (a  new character).
David Menkin as Virgil Tracy.
Andres Williams as the Hood.

And yes, that's the 88-year-old David Graham reprising his role as Parker, which he first played in the original Thunderbirds in 1965.

New THUNDERBIRDS series greenlit

With the sad news of Gerry Anderson's death in December, it was assumed that his plans for a new Thunderbirds TV series had also been abandoned. Happily, this is not the case. Today it was confirmed a new Thunderbirds TV series is entering production for airing in 2015.

The new series will be a co-production between New Zealand's Pukeko Pictures and CITV in the UK, which will also broadcast the show (hopefully in a better timeslot than the new Captain Scarlet, which they pretty much killed through appallingly awful scheduling). Surprisingly, the show will not be all-CGI, instead using a mixture of models and sets along with CGI. The characters will be CG, as presumably will be the more action-oriented scenes. The CGI for the series will be provided by no less a source than Weta, who did the CGI for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies and King Kong, amongst many other films.

A 26-episode season is now in pre-production for airing in 2015.